


Lost in Forever

by Camelittle



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Aged Merlin, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arthur's POV, Curses, Gwaine Lives, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Merlioske-friendly, Post-Battle of Camlann, Quest for the Lost Manservant, arthur lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22067827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camelittle/pseuds/Camelittle
Summary: In a world where Arthur and Gwaine both survive Camlann, everyone returns to Camelot subtly changed. Gwen spends all her time fussing over an injured Leon, and Arthur discovers that he doesn’t really mind all that much, because for the first time in his adult life peace is reigning over the newly united kingdom. And anyway, that’s not even the worst thing that Arthur has to put up with. Neither is the fact that the ancient, cranky sorcerer who saved the day at Camlann has taken up residence in the citadel and is wreaking havoc by casting minor curses everywhere he goes. No, the worst thing is that Merlin is still missing. Ten days after the battle, Arthur tires of waiting and decides to go on a quest to find his lost manservant.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 498
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 10





	Lost in Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Cursed" square on my 2019 h/c bingo card. Huge thanks to the wonderful Clea and LFB72 for the lightning fast beta reading! Title is from the eponymous track by Beyond Black which is very cool - check it out https://youtu.be/G_xqVIN2J0s

***

Arthur turns to retrieve his pack, and nearly jumps out of his skin. “Gwaine! Don’t startle me like that, I could have had your head off.” 

“Begging your pardon, sire, but no chance.” Gwaine chuckles, curiosity making his eyes dart from Arthur’s pack to his saddled horse and his sword belt and back again. “Going somewhere, my lord?” 

“I’m going to find Merlin.” Arthur focuses on the horse’s bridle, tightening a strap or two while Hengroen harrumphs quietly, her breath raising twin plumes of steam in the frigid air. 

It has been ten days already, and still there is no sign of Merlin. Arthur can’t bear to think that of all the casualties of the war, Merlin is still out there, potentially wounded, potentially dead, and with no-one to retrieve him from whatever mess he has managed to get himself into. Although everyone questions his memory, Arthur knows in his bones that Merlin turned the tide of the battle by warning him in his dream. He must repay such loyalty, he must. Besides which, getting out of the citadel for a few days will do Arthur the world of good. 

Gwaine doesn’t answer, but instead pulls a saddle off the stable hook and starts to saunter towards his mare, Fancy’s stall. 

“Alone,” adds Arthur, pointedly.

“Begging your pardon, sire, but I saw Merlin last. You’ll need me with you to find the way.” 

“Absolutely not.” He has a point, but not one that Arthur wishes to concede so lightly. 

Shaking his head, Gwaine just continues his preparations. 

“Don’t be stupid, Gwaine. You have only just recovered from your… experience.” It had been a close run thing, apparently, escaping from Morgana. Percival had reached him in the nick of time. 

“Aye, and the fresh air and exercise will do him good,” states another voice, bang on cue. 

“Percival?” Wrongfooted, Arthur swivels on his heel to discover the big man standing in the stable doorway, arms folded. “You as well?” 

“Someone needs to keep Gwaine out of trouble.” 

“I suppose you’ll just follow me if I forbid you to.” 

“You know us too well.” Gwaine swishes his hair in that insubordinate way that he has, and a sudden swell of affection makes Arthur return his insolent grin with a wan smile of his own. They could have lost Gwaine, they nearly did. Thank all the gods that they didn’t. 

“Insubordinate ruffians, the pair of you. I should have you both flogged.” More for show than anything else, Arthur frowns at them both, but inside his chest the pained knot of worry that tightens every time he thinks about Merlin loosens, just a tiny bit. 

It is early in the morning, before the first cockcrow, and a sliver of pale pink along the horizon the only hint of the impending dawn when the three men ride out towards the gates of Camelot only to find a fourth blocking their path. White bearded, and bent double with age, carrying a staff and clad from head to toe in a scarlet cloak, the sorcerer who had saved them all in the battle of Camlann glares up from beneath beetling brows.

“You.” With a scowl that is genuine this time, Arthur slows his horse. “Out of our way.”

That pesky sorcerer! Although he has proved useful in healing the fallen, he has a mischievous peevishness about him that is causing havoc all around the citadel. Only yesterday, he had cursed Leon’s hair to tie itself into knots that even Guinevere could not disentangle. Anyone would think that the old git had been hard done by, and yet Arthur has housed him with all honour in the castle and lifted the ban on magic without even knowing the man’s name. 

After all, his impact on Morgana and her retreating armies had been unequivocal. She had whirled around and aimed a blast of magic at the wizard that had caught him in the chest, but when he responded by running her through with Excalibur, she fell instantly, and her armies had turned tail and fled. 

“Me.” The wizard bares his teeth in what he probably intends to be a smile. 

“Why are you here at this hour?”

“I could ask you the same thing, Arthur Pendragon.”

The lack of deference in his speech grates on Arthur, making him grind his teeth together for a moment while he tamps down his rising temper before replying. “I am the King of Camelot, and High King of all Albion. I answer to no-one. Whereas you…” With an economic gesture, Arthur indicates that the sorcerer should move out of his way. 

“...And _I_ am but an old man, deserving of the common courtesy due to one of my advanced age.” The stubborn old git shows no sign of moving out of their way, and grins instead, showing an array of surprisingly even teeth.

Arthur sighs and pinches his forehead. “All right, sorcerer. If it means you’ll shift. What do you want from us?” 

“Only to know of your quest.” 

“That’s for us to know,” says Gwaine, hand on hilt. 

The sorcerer’s eyes narrow. “Careful, Sir Gwaine. You wouldn’t want your apple store to get mildew now, would you? Or the mead in your hip flask to turn to water? Hmm?” 

“You wouldn’t dare!” But Gwaine pats his inside pocket, where he keeps his flask, as if seeking reassurance.

“Just get out of our way, old man. Or we’ll make you,” says Percival. 

Riding on a war horse, his cloak fanning out around him in a scarlet wave, the huge knight towers over the stooped and wizened figure. He exceeds the man’s height three times over, if not more. But the sorcerer appears uncowed. He may be an annoyance, but he is a brave one. 

“You, _young_ man, are forgetting your manners.” He points one finger at Percival’s booted feet, which are at about his eye level, and his eyes flash pale gold. “I have no patience for such rudeness. May your boots always take on tiny stones. _After_ you have just fastened them.” 

“Watch it,” growls Arthur. “Just because I am grateful for your aid in battle, and have lifted the ban on magic, doesn’t mean that you are immune to being punished for using it with ill intent. And I’m beginning to grow tired of your churlish little curses, ol— friend.”

“Churlish, is it? I’ll give you churlish. Walk a mile in my shoes…” Subsiding into mutinous muttering, the sorcerer harrumphs a little but does not move.

Sighing, Arthur deems it best to capitulate. He has learned these last few days that little will shift this old man whose obstinacy surpasses Arthur’s and could match even Merlin’s for its solidity. “We seek one who is lost, that is all. Now, you are blocking our path. Let us pass.” 

“I don’t think so.” The wizard flashes that horrible grin again, and his eyes flash orange again. There’s a flash and a puff of smoke. Hengroen shifts her weight from side to side and Arthur blinks down at the gnarled hand that appears at his waist. “Come on, then,” he adds, his voice a sibilant whisper in Arthur’s ear, and his warmth an unwelcome line along Arthur’s back. “What are we waiting for?” 

“Are you proposing to share my horse?” Indignant, Arthur clenches his jaw. 

“Are you proposing to share _my_ horse?” mimics the irritating bastard. 

“I’m not going to get into an argument over horse ownership with a man who doesn’t even have the courtesy to share his own name.” As they set off through the forest, ducking beneath branches, the sour tang of the old man’s breath against his neck makes Arthur wrinkle his nose.

“Ah. My name. I must have had one, once. But alas, I fear the witch took it from me with her dying breath.” 

“She took your _name_?” 

“Aye. Spiteful, you see, these dying witches. I don’t know who I am. Do you?” 

A pang of pity makes Arthur slow his horse for a moment, and he wishes that he had the time to ask Gaius to seek a solution for the magician’s plight, but Gaius has been run ragged tending to the wounded without Merlin to run errands for him. Which thought reminds him of his mission and he taps Hengroen flanks again gently. The nameless sorcerer’s problems can wait. Arthur needs to find his lost friend first. There will be time enough to seek a solution after that. 

***

They pause as the light is beginning to fail in the Valley of the Fallen Kings, next to the entrance to a cave where Gwaine swears he last saw Merlin. The cave is silent now, with nought but a pile of rubble outside to indicate that anyone else had ever been there. 

“What happened here, I wonder?” Arthur marvels at the piles of now wet dust that linger, poking at them with his foot. “Was it like this when you brought him here?” 

“No.” Gwaine frowns as he shakes his head. “Something terrible must have happened here since I left him.” 

They gaze at the menacing black gash in the rock that gapes as if the earth itself had split open and disgorged its contents into the forest. 

“Do you think Merlin’s trapped in there?” says Percival softly. 

Arthur shudders. He’d originally thought to camp here, but a sudden sense of urgency makes his jaw clench and lends fire to his weary limbs. “I’m going inside.”

“We’re coming with you,” says Gwaine, promptly. 

When Arthur arches an eyebrow, Percival just nods. 

“You’ll stay here, old man,” Arthur adds, imbuing his voice with command.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” grumbles the sorcerer. “Foolish knights. How do you propose to find anything in a dark cave at night, or at any other time for that matter? Of course I’m coming with you.” 

He promptly mutters a word that Arthur doesn’t know, conjuring a friendly-looking blue orb that bobs away towards the rock face. Where it casts its light onto the crags and crevices they look less intimidating, somehow. Arthur recalls seeing something of its kind before, but can’t quite place the memory. It’s hidden deep in his mind, and runs away when he chases it. 

“Come on, Percival,” growls Arthur as he sets off, seeing that Percival is lagging behind. “Get a move on.” 

“Something in my shoe.” 

Rolling his eyes, Arthur ducks into the cave, ignoring the old man’s cackles as Percival hobbles along after them. 

“Merlin?” he yells into the semi darkness, toeing aside crumbling stones. “Merlin are you there?”

“There, there, there, there!” call the mocking echoes as they edge deeper into the cave, the pale light glistening on its walls. Here and there, scorch marks pepper the rubble but above their heads, away from the damage, dots of pale translucent crystals shimmer, reflecting the light in rainbow colours. In their depths, Arthur imagines that he sees visions of far off lands and he pauses for a moment, fascinated by the play of light held by their glowing facets. 

“Do you feel it?” says the sorcerer in softer tones than Arthur has yet heard from him. “This place… it is so full of magic. It is alive with it. I wonder…” 

“Here, sire!” calls Percival, a few paces over to one side. He lifts something - a scrap of fabric. 

The colour is obscure but it becomes clearer as Arthur approaches and with him, the light from the sorcerer’s glowing sphere. Linen, tattered and faded, but still a familiar shade of maroon. 

“Merlin’s neckerchief,” he chokes out. He kneels, and picks out here and there spots of what could be blood on the floor of the cave. “He’s still here. I am sure of it.” He can’t say why, but there’s a sense of Merlin’s presence here. It fills him with hope and fear in equal measure. 

The old man harrumphs. “All this fuss over a mere manservant.” 

Furious, Arthur spins and pins the man against the bare rock by the throat. “Sorcerer or no, I will kill you with my bare hands if you belittle Merlin, do you understand?” 

“Merlin?” The old man’s eyes glisten. “Merlin,” he whispers again, frowning. “The magic in this place… it reminds me… could it be…?” 

Around them, there is a sudden flash as the orb glows brightly, its light reflected in all the crystals that line the cave’s ceiling, and in the old man’s eyes until they glow in an ethereal shade of blue that reminds Arthur of something. Someone. 

But it can’t be. The horrible old magician must be playing tricks on him again. Arthur drops him as if stung. 

The sorcerer falls, crumpling to the floor, clutching at his throat, feet scrabbling weakly on the bare stone. His breathing is coming in great gasps, his chest heaving as if he had run there. “Merlin, of course! Oh, Gods.” 

“Do you remember something?” A white-hot flash of anger tremors beneath Arthur’s skin and erupts in his throat. He can barely keeps it in check behind his teeth. “Quickly. What do you know. Tell me! I order you to tell me!” 

But the old man’s eyes shimmer as if filling with tears, and he chokes out a sob that sounds a bit like Arthur’s name. The orb glows brighter and brighter, until it becomes a dazzling blue-white like the cresting waves on the ocean in the sunlight, and Arthur shields his eyes against its onslaught. When he opens them again, the old man is gone and in his place… 

“Merlin!” Arthur darts forward and hauls him to his feet, almost a dead weight in his arms, while Percival and Gwaine crowd around thumping him on the back and calling out his name until it echoes through the cave like a hymn. “I thought we’d lost you! But where is that old… where is the… and the magic! I don’t understand.” 

“Oh, God, Arthur. I was lost for so long. Morgana’s curse hit me before she died and I lost myself. I didn’t know… I did magic! Oh, gods. I cursed Percival’s boots!” Merlin’s half crying, half laughing. 

“You’re not making any sense, Merlin,” growls Arthur, adding, “where did the sorcerer go?” although he’s beginning to get an inkling. 

When Merlin opens his mouth again, Arthur’s almost certain he’s about to incriminate himself, but just then Merlin’s eyes roll back into his head and he falls into a dead faint. At the same time, the light that had guided them into the cave fails, and they are plunged into darkness. 

“Well, fuck. I suppose that answers that question,” says Gwaine. 

“Shut up, Gwaine,” Arthur replies automatically while he tries to work out how to find their way out of the cave. 

***

Normally, the arrival of the king and his knights after a quest would prompt rejoicing and a cohort of happy children and townsfolk clamouring for news. But this time, when Arthur returns to Camelot, with his seemingly lifeless manservant draped across the pommel of his saddle, the townsfolk take one look at his stern face and turn away, back to their business. No-one wants to be the first to hear news this bad, after all. 

But when Gaius hobbles out, his face full of anguish and hope, Arthur takes pity on him. 

“Merlin lives,” he says. “Attend him in my chambers, Gaius. Alone and at once. Percival, bring Merlin.” And without pausing to check that his orders are followed, Arthur descends from his great warhorse and sweeps up the steps of the citadel. 

“Sire.” Gaius bows low, hiding his face, as well he might, for he has a lot to explain. 

When Merlin’s eyes finally blink open, three days later, Arthur almost misses the flash of blue that shows he is awake. Having dismissed all those who would attend him, even Gaius, who reassures him that Merlin has recovered from the fever that ailed him and fallen into a deep, refreshing sleep, Arthur occupies himself by busy pacing around his chambers while Merlin’s chest rises and falls, every so often looking over to check whether Merlin’s position has changed. 

Gwen and Leon are dealing with the affairs of the kingdom, for now, while his surviving knights are being drilled daily by Percival and Gwaine’s expert tutorship. He is grateful for this time, which has given him time to come to terms with those of Merlin’s secrets that Gaius was prepared to reveal. 

There will be more. 

“Sire.” Merlin’s voice is a croak, barely a whisper, but his gaze is still steady and true, that flinty blue that Arthur has grown to trust despite all the years of subterfuge.

“Hush. You must need water. Here. Little sips.” Arthur sits on the side of his bed, and first wets Merlin’s lips with a finger, as Gaius showed him to, before holding a beaker to his mouth. 

Somehow, the pieces that have clicked into place do not surprise him. It’s as if he had been viewing the world through a window, before. Now, someone has led him forth from the room and shown him the full landscape, and he sees with a clarity that was previously denied him. Now, the white heat of rage and grief have gone. Now, he is left with this: a man, dear and beloved, who has sacrificed his sense of self and remained in the shadows unacknowledged and underestimated, who has lost even his own name, and remained steadfast and indomitable to the last. And all for the love of his king. 

What man, what _king_ , could wish for more than that? At the very least, it is a good place to start to rebuild their relationship from. 

“No more lies, Merlin.” Arthur bends and kisses Merlin on the forehead. As Merlin’s eyes crinkle and his lips tug up into a half smile, warmth steals over Arthur’s heart and he realises that at last, Camelot’s golden age is finally upon them. 

***

END

***

**Author's Note:**

> Not my characters, I'm not getting paid for this work


End file.
